Find adds 5,000 years to humans' time in Europe

Scientists have found the oldest evidence for modern humans in Europe at a site in Russia. The location, which includes evidence of ivory carving and the use of traps to catch small mammals such as hares, reinforces the view that stone age humans used technology and innovation to expand into new areas.

The find dates the European leg of our ancestors' journey out of Africa at between 42,000 and 45,000 years ago. Scientists had previously thought that modern humans spread across western and central Europe between 40,000 and 42,000 years ago.

So finding fossil evidence for a complex human culture so early and so far east is a surprise. Kostenki is a group of more than 20 archaeological sites on the banks of the Don river, 250 miles south of Moscow.

The stone age people who lived there had a sophisticated culture that may well have involved trade. Most of the stone they used to make tools and other artefacts was brought between 60 and 100 miles, while shells used to make ornaments came all the way from the Black Sea, 300 miles away.

"It is difficult to know whether it is simply one group of individuals moving over great distances, or whether it is an exchange of materials between two or more groups," said John Hoffecker of the University of Colorado in Boulder, who is part of the team who made the finds. The Kostenki site is well known to archaeologists, but the new finds, published in Nature, push the date for the earliest human occupation back by around 5,000 years.

The oldest dated bone and ivory needles with eyelets have been found at Kostenki, indicating that the inhabitants were tailoring animal furs to protect them from the harsh climate.

Why did the African immigrants choose this relatively cold and dry site rather than more hospitable lands further west? Their slender physique was unsuited to the glacial climate in Russia, said Professor Hoffecker, especially compared with the stocky Neanderthals who inhabited most of Europe. It seems Neanderthals were either absent or scarce in the region. Also, modern humans used traps and snares: "They remade themselves through technology," Prof Hoffecker said.